Dynex to the rescue

I was busy moving furniture this weekend. Big, heavy furniture, like an eight foot shelving unit made of walnut,  from the lower level of my house to the upper level. That means taking it out the lower level door, hand trucking it over the gravel and up the curvy steep driveway, then rolling into the front door, through the kitchen out to the back deck, down the deck, then into the master bedroom through sliding glass doors.

Eesh. That was heavy. We wanted to put the TV in the hutch part of the shelving unit but since it’s an old Sony XBR tube, it was just too deep.

My take was that we needed a new TV, pronto!

The unit was 31” wide with a  28.5” opening. That means i could easily get a 26” LCD TV in there, and potentially squeeze a 32” in there.

i went with my 10 year old son to Costco, with a tape measure, to see what we could find. It turns out that Costco was closed on New Year’s Day, so we headed over to Best Buy. We looked at the 32” TVs and only the Dynex had a bezel width of 30.75” – just under the limit. Everyone else – the Samsung, the LG, the Sony, topped out at more than 31” across.

The Dynex looked good, although it was 720p. It had three HDMI inputs, a couple of component inputs, etc. i figured the difference between 720p and 1080p would be tough to see on a 32”screen from across the bedroom. Plus, the Dynes was on sale for only $329 – a great price.

Too bad the Dynex 32” was out of stock – the old bait and switch. We left the store and I dialed up the Best Buy in Seattle and sure enough they had one Dynex left.

We got there and as we worked our way back to the TVs i saw a table with some open box items. Sure enough, there was a 32” Dynex there, open box – a few of them in fact. They were all labeled $299 – a $30 savings, but one was labeled (mis-labeled?) $269! i asked the clerk about them and re-confirmed the $269 price. Such a deal!

We got home and i hooked it up to my cable box. The picture came up but after a few minutes the screen blanked out. Aargh. i went through a few memory configurations but this was a dud.

This morning i woke up early, packed up the Dynex and headed back to Seattle. i figured I would swap this open box for another  - at least i had my $269 price. i went in the store and made my way through the still short customer service line. Wes P. behind the counter noted that i had the “old” Dynex, not the 2010 model (already?). He checked with the stick to see if they had another old Dynex to swap with. Well, they didn’t, so he gave me a swap with a brand new Dynex, packed new in the box. I ended up with a brand new 32” LCD TV for $269. Score! Thanks, Wes P. My faith in Best Buy has been restored!

I brought it home and my son and i hooked it up. I needed to activate the cable box (more on that later) but soon I had a pristine HDTV picture in the hutch – just barely fit.

Comments

[SparkDad]

So how is the Dynex working? I am really wanting a Sony LED, but they are really expensive and around $500 is more up my alley.

[Digital Dad]

So far so good. I hooked it up to a Comcast HD box and the picture is a big improvement. i always suggest setting the color temp down to 6500, though.

You should be able to see them side by side at a Best Buy.